In Java you don't... If you're lucky enough to be in the thread in question, you can stop by "simply" exiting the run() method. (Good luck if you're umpteen levels deep in cruft at the moment.) Otherwise, you're pretty much SOL.
who couldn't explain what a deadlock is or how to fix it.
A deadlock occurs when one or more seperate threads (or even processes) are waiting on something that will never happen. Once in a great while, this is as simple as two threads each waiting on the other before doing what they are being waited on for (kind of like employees waiting to get experience and employeers waiting for experienced employees). The only sure way to fix(1) a deadlock is restart the application/reboot the machine. You could try simply killing a victim and hoping for the best, but that gets unpredictable fast, and if you're talking about Java thread-lock refer to my previous answer.
Of course, if you answer questions this way in an actual job interview (by telling the truth) you'll never get hired anyways so no worries.
(1)Note: If you'd asked how to *avoid* deadlocks, you might have gotten a lot more useful answer...
I'm very aware that the only truly secure computer is a brick.
My objection to the grandparent was in thinking the problem with surfer security is user education. There's nothing useful to teach end-users because the software we have now just isn't worth training on. For instance, I had no idea how terribly written X was until I read the nVidia exploit and found out that a program widely used for remote access was trusting a proprietary module designed for squeezing performance out of hardware to bounds-check information from a remote source (or from user space etc).
And this is coming from the guys who are "good" at security...
It does you no good to pick up a gun and check if it's loaded if it has a substantial chance of blowing up in your face when you open it.
Actually.... if you read the account it says God was pissed because:
1) God told man to spread out and fill the earth.
2) Man arfed around on some tower instead of spreading out and filling the earth.
If you read what happens after the "event"...
3) Man spread out into groups that could talk to each other and filled the earth.
So really it didn't have much at all to do with people "getting somewhere" just them being stupid/disobedient. I'm sure someone could have had a lot of good laughs over the fact the humans thought they were going to "get to heaven" when not only would they have to get into space, but heaven is actually in another dimension/lightyears away/otherwise inaccessible to mere mortals. (Or simply doesn't exist... I guess that'd be pretty ironic too.)
It means getting the kids and Mr Schenck from next door over and doing it all over and over again until you are quite sure that the most drooling moron will be able to do x, y or z.
Ya, I suppose it takes advanced degrees in user interface design to understand that:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
is not user friendly. But don't take my word for it. Go google for [ubuntu refresh rate] yourself and take a look at the first hit.
Just a friendly warning in case you're enough of a drooling moron to run that command. There's a good chance restoring xorg.conf won't get you back to where you started... (Especially in cases where you were having trouble in the first place.)
As if anyone is safe surfing the web, even those who "know" what they are doing. The "nvidia binary driver exploit" on Linux which allowed remote exploits from vbscript under firefox springs to mind. What makes you think any browser on any platform is safe? (Aside from lynx on OpenBSD or a secure Linux distro perhaps...)
Eventually, we won't even have our music files on our own computers.
Why wouldn't we keep local copies? Anyone expecting to always have network connectivity (or worse yet wireless connectivity) is just asking for things to work unreliably. With storage capacities growing by leaps and bounds, why send the same song to the same device repeatedly?
Mozilla tends to be deliberate about SSL-related changes in the browser.
Translation: MS is rushing something into IE before the standard is even set. Verisign wants to start charging for "Extended Validation" right away whether it actually meets the emerging standard well or not, and whether this has a positive effect on user security or not.
Turning an address bar green is a long ways from actually providing security to end-users. All parties involved in the standards process must know this by now. (Users need to be able to give and receive strong referrals as well as have a facility for locally mapping their own personal trust relationships to and from secure keys if there's any chance of stopping phish attacks. Knowledge about which CA signed a specific certificate can also be important, but probably shouldn't be all that important after initial referral and creation of a trust relationship.)
Microsoft trusting something != me trusting something
However I doubt Microsoft will ever truly get that concept. (This goes for a lot of large corporations, verisign included...)
I mean, wouldn't it make more sense for Verisign to do the same thing (if they wanted to get some money for insecure certs but still have a more secure cert) to create a new Certification Authority name also run by Verisign that actually does their job, and not require any browser code changes?
But then how would you tell the old CA apart from the new CA? It isn't like your browser loudly proclaims which CA is validating a particular domain. Or are you suggesting they revoke their own current CA status?
In any case. I'm guessing this "software cop" will be down in the portions of Windows that are "impossible" for a user to modify. You know, the same part that won't let you play the latest Britney spears album without paying for it. If the Windows Platform Security Initiative has any success, then this "software cop" should remain uncorrupted. If not, people will do whatever the heck they want and Microsoft is going to have a really messed up userbase.
Oh, and don't forget the implications of the DMCA. Anyone caught hacking WGA or palladium is going down for 5-10, whether they're trying to help the situation or not.
I mean... if the overflow is that easy, wouldn't someone adept at hitting the right targets in memory be able to do a lot worse with nothing more than javascript?
You got the part (in the article) where it talks about exploiting by visiting a web-page in firefox right?
That said, there's more than one piece of software in this stack. I don't quite understand why X (which has a glyph drawing function and an expectation of security) isn't doing validation before passing that glyph data down to a native driver (which is fast, but not necessarily secure/robust). Some drivers are vendor blobs for gosh sakes!!! Get those babies on a reservation.
For my money it sounds like ProcRenderCompositeGlyphs should be a little more careful about what it creates...
The XRender extension provides a client function named XRenderCompositeString8 which tells the X server to render glyphs onto the screen. This request is processed by the server's ProcRenderCompositeGlpyhs function. This function pulls the glyphs out of the render request, constructs a glyph list, and then calls into the graphics driver via a registered callback function.
gmail, google maps, google calendar, etc but not a web version of MS word, MS outlook, or MS Project?
Because:
1) The google stuff is free. (or at least unobtrusively ad-supported)
2) The google stuff is collaborative on a global model. Whereas LookOut and Reject are both typically used to manage problem domains that span only a single company.
Work under the gun a lot and you tend to find the shortcuts yourself.
While it may be true you come up with a lot of ideas this way. Quite often you never get time to implement the more ambitious ones... (Or at least it can take a long time before they get into mainstream use.)
Of course, the GPL is not good for making money as a middle man in a completely free distribution market
It's arguably not as good at making money for the initial developer either (Otherwise we'd probably all be using it/Bill Gates is a lot richer than RMS, or even Linus Torvalds last I checked). Of course, so far it appears it can be more efficient at creating high quality software in several markets. It also makes the software more valuable to the end user once it's finished.
If you are talking about sharing development costs, the first user could be a group of users, like when the blender foundation raised 100000 euros to free its code. There are lots of times where paying for something that will be free afterwards is fair for you. Maybe you are just interested in the software, and you don't consider it a competitive advantage, but only a way to keep costs down. A good example is government organizations. It would be more sensible for them to pay to develop stuff that is available to everyone than to pay several times for licenses of the same stuff.
Which is a good model when you can get it to work, but it requirees a lot of up-front organization on that "first sale".
About the "free" as in "beer", I don't think so, blender for example was bought with money, and it is free software, and open source, anybody will tell you that.
It's free as in freedom on purpose yes, but it is also "free as in beer" for everyone who wasn't part of that initial effort (whether as a developer or funder). This is a free rider issue. (Though whether it is a problem or a benefit depends on who you talk to...)
The thing you talk about does exist...Unix was sold that way, back in the day.
Maybe it is the case that the model of selling software, and giving source to customers only for free, isn't all that efficient at monetizing *or* sharing ideas which is why the practice isn't all that popular. (Or maybe, it just isn't all that noticable when it happens.)
You shouldn't worry , though. You can call whatever model you want "open source", most people don't know what it means, and those who do, don't agree, so it's a safe bet.
I'm not trying to mislabel anything here. Just understand what open source is supposed to mean, as well as something more about the market.
Does open refer just to the fact you can read the source? Or is it more like an open tournament where anyone can join up? Or, perhaps it becomes useless to categorize at some point and everything has to boil down to individual licenses in the end *shudders* (waaay too many of those to get an easy handle on).
--
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go on about creators inherent rights to extract money and/or control from every individual who touches their creation in some way. However, the flip side of this on a day job where my goal is making money, at least enough to live on, is that I'd like some kind of distribution model to customers that seems "fair". My company currently sells proprietary software to a rather small market. We don't currently offer source to our customers for free, though we have in the past. One thing we do provide is all major upgrades (which aren't "new products", and yes it's a gray area) for free to any customers under our maintenance contract.
What I'm trying to figure out is where open source fits into that business model outside of tools projects and spare-time endeavors off hours.
No it does not. The GPL forbids you from distributing binaries without making an offer of source availability, and making that source available more or less "at cost" - eg cost of media and reasonable handling charges.
That works for precisely one copy, since both source and binary must be made available under a redistributable license.
You are free to charge whatever you want for the software itself - I could sell you gcc for $1,000,000 if I wanted to (and you were willing to pay it). What I can't do is prevent you from selling it for $100,000, and similarly you can't prevent your customers from selling it for $10,000, and so on.
Is that supposed to mean something? Because this comes strait off the FSF site and it has never meant a damn to me no matter how many times I see RMS or someone else spout it off. I mean c'mon! Obviously you can't charge for something that people can download for free.
Oh wait, that was my whole point. You get to sell exactly one copy (or perhaps several all at once to various people) but after that the "selling software" part of the equation is pretty much all over. (Aside from a couple tricks like alternative licensing or "early access" etc which only work in certain markets anyways)
Note: This isn't to say Free/open source software isn't interesting and successful, quite the contrary, it's amazing to me that the economies of re-use (or something) allow this model to actually thrive in quite a few situations. I'm just curious why no one charges for copies and yet still provides source for free. I guess maybe it's because that would put one party in too much control over add-on work by others and it's actually the free sharing of code portions that makes Free/OSS a success in the first place.
You are trolling, or just wrong, as others stated.
The GPL doesn't forbid you from selling copies, you don't sound like someone who actually read it.
Actually I've read it several times, and quite frankly I'm not even sure it says what RMS thinks it says... (I know I don't fully understand it in a legal context) Of course, all that really matters is what the FSF decides to use it for in court. Judging by their track record so far, you have to be pretty far out of line before they get the big stick out. If you're at least trying to follow what you think it says, they'll probably just ask you nicely to behave at first.
For example, Mysql will happily sell you a proprietary copy of their software, because the GPL _lets_ them *gasp* charge for their software,
The "for pay" MySQL is under a seperate license. The only people paying for it are those who don't want to be encumbered by the normal rules of the GPL. (And also a couple other things under the seperate license) Saying that the GPL allows copies to be sold because it can be part of a dual license plan is like saying that water isn't wet because it can be mixed with sand (which is dry).
The definition of "open source" is just that. The source code is open and available to the users of the software. Perhaps the term open here is like an open tournament... All comers need access. But reading the typical definitions of open source I don't see anything about free copies to non-customers. Basically, I was just idly wondering why it is that no one sells software more like books, where you pay for a copy, but get the whole thing instead of a restricted source-less version.
Obviously this would be neither copyleft nor "free software". That certainly doesn't stop me wondering why it never seems to happen.
The idea of 1 user paying for what other millions use for free is not that bad to some people.
Ya, it's probably great for everyone except that first user.
You just need to keep away from GPLed software, and you will be fine. Nobody is forcing it down your throat, there are some other alternatives, and you are free to use them.
Actually I use and do my best to be part of the community for several pieces of GPL software. The GPL is great for what it was intended for, creating an intellectual commons that isn't easily usurped by greedy corporations. The problem is, not everyone who writes software is doing it for the same reasons, or agrees with the ideal of getting "all software" to eventually be under a GPL like license. Some of us think it's good to have some of both because we think there's some "crap work" in software development that's a lot less likely to get done under a free software model... Or, maybe we figure copyright is actually a somewhat useful model if properly limited and kept within reason.
As far as having things shoved down my throat, it's really more that the entire community appears to consider things only "open source" if they're 100% free (as in beer). I just don't quite understand why that is... You would think there could be a middle ground where source is available to paying customers (and their agents) only.
Note: Microsoft "shared source" is a pretty poor example of this kind of thing last I checked. Sun's at least been trying with the Java source (of course they give most of that software away to begin with, but the JDK is kind of a loss leader).
Wrong! As long as you provide a copy of the source code (or make the source code available at minimal cost)
To paraphrase: You don't have to give away your software for free. (You only have to give away the source for media cost under a freely redistributable license)
Letting others give your source for free (as you even mention yourself) is tantamount to giving away your software.
Note: Apple mixes proprietary BSD licensed software with their proprietary OS features. (What's cool is they've even released a lot of their own stuff under an OSS license...) This is a lot closer to the "give a copy of the source with the license model" but it still holds back the source to Aqua. This wouldn't be possible using the GPL.
There's nothing compact about a Long Playing record.
so why would you buy a laser linyl player over a CD player? You have a bulkier, more fragile item with the exact same sound quality. hint: they both will use the same processing to convert the groves to sound..
Now, I don't know how specific laser turntables work, but given the price and market I'm going to assume they "Do the Right Thing" and use effective analog electronics.
From the grandparents linked site:
Two additional laser beams are directed at the left groove wall and the right groove wall just below the tracking beams. Modulation on the individual grooves is reflected to scanner mirrors and onto left and right photo optical sensors. The variations of the modulated light cause the audio sensors to develop an electrical representation of the mechanical modulation of the grooves. The entire sound reproduction chain is analog.
Go read about analog electronics, digital electronics, and fourier transforms. Then come back and say CD players and laser turntables are the same with a strait face.
(Note: I'm not claiming to be able to tell a difference in any of these cases. I'm an engineer, not an audiophile.)
Slashdot Mirror
How do you stop a running thread?
In Java you don't... If you're lucky enough to be in the thread in question, you can stop by "simply" exiting the run() method. (Good luck if you're umpteen levels deep in cruft at the moment.) Otherwise, you're pretty much SOL.
who couldn't explain what a deadlock is or how to fix it.
A deadlock occurs when one or more seperate threads (or even processes) are waiting on something that will never happen. Once in a great while, this is as simple as two threads each waiting on the other before doing what they are being waited on for (kind of like employees waiting to get experience and employeers waiting for experienced employees). The only sure way to fix(1) a deadlock is restart the application/reboot the machine. You could try simply killing a victim and hoping for the best, but that gets unpredictable fast, and if you're talking about Java thread-lock refer to my previous answer.
Of course, if you answer questions this way in an actual job interview (by telling the truth) you'll never get hired anyways so no worries.
(1)Note: If you'd asked how to *avoid* deadlocks, you might have gotten a lot more useful answer...
Is that supposed to be funny? I fear your sense of humor might be even sicker than mine...
I'm very aware that the only truly secure computer is a brick.
My objection to the grandparent was in thinking the problem with surfer security is user education. There's nothing useful to teach end-users because the software we have now just isn't worth training on. For instance, I had no idea how terribly written X was until I read the nVidia exploit and found out that a program widely used for remote access was trusting a proprietary module designed for squeezing performance out of hardware to bounds-check information from a remote source (or from user space etc).
And this is coming from the guys who are "good" at security...
It does you no good to pick up a gun and check if it's loaded if it has a substantial chance of blowing up in your face when you open it.
Haven't you read their latest moves in virutal licensing?
Actually.... if you read the account it says God was pissed because:
1) God told man to spread out and fill the earth.
2) Man arfed around on some tower instead of spreading out and filling the earth.
If you read what happens after the "event"...
3) Man spread out into groups that could talk to each other and filled the earth.
So really it didn't have much at all to do with people "getting somewhere" just them being stupid/disobedient. I'm sure someone could have had a lot of good laughs over the fact the humans thought they were going to "get to heaven" when not only would they have to get into space, but heaven is actually in another dimension/lightyears away/otherwise inaccessible to mere mortals. (Or simply doesn't exist... I guess that'd be pretty ironic too.)
It means getting the kids and Mr Schenck from next door over and doing it all over and over again until you are quite sure that the most drooling moron will be able to do x, y or z.
Ya, I suppose it takes advanced degrees in user interface design to understand that:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
is not user friendly. But don't take my word for it. Go google for [ubuntu refresh rate] yourself and take a look at the first hit.
Just a friendly warning in case you're enough of a drooling moron to run that command. There's a good chance restoring xorg.conf won't get you back to where you started... (Especially in cases where you were having trouble in the first place.)
If I say something wrong, the police get me.
Oh yeah. That's the society I want to live in.
Gimme a break.
As if anyone is safe surfing the web, even those who "know" what they are doing. The "nvidia binary driver exploit" on Linux which allowed remote exploits from vbscript under firefox springs to mind. What makes you think any browser on any platform is safe? (Aside from lynx on OpenBSD or a secure Linux distro perhaps...)
Synching files between remote devices is certainly useful, but it still doesn't require sending the same data more than once to the same device...
Eventually, we won't even have our music files on our own computers.
Why wouldn't we keep local copies? Anyone expecting to always have network connectivity (or worse yet wireless connectivity) is just asking for things to work unreliably. With storage capacities growing by leaps and bounds, why send the same song to the same device repeatedly?
Mozilla tends to be deliberate about SSL-related changes in the browser.
Translation: MS is rushing something into IE before the standard is even set. Verisign wants to start charging for "Extended Validation" right away whether it actually meets the emerging standard well or not, and whether this has a positive effect on user security or not.
Turning an address bar green is a long ways from actually providing security to end-users. All parties involved in the standards process must know this by now. (Users need to be able to give and receive strong referrals as well as have a facility for locally mapping their own personal trust relationships to and from secure keys if there's any chance of stopping phish attacks. Knowledge about which CA signed a specific certificate can also be important, but probably shouldn't be all that important after initial referral and creation of a trust relationship.)
Microsoft trusting something != me trusting something
However I doubt Microsoft will ever truly get that concept. (This goes for a lot of large corporations, verisign included...)
I mean, wouldn't it make more sense for Verisign to do the same thing (if they wanted to get some money for insecure certs but still have a more secure cert) to create a new Certification Authority name also run by Verisign that actually does their job, and not require any browser code changes?
But then how would you tell the old CA apart from the new CA? It isn't like your browser loudly proclaims which CA is validating a particular domain. Or are you suggesting they revoke their own current CA status?
Otherwise Dvorak could actually be right!
In any case. I'm guessing this "software cop" will be down in the portions of Windows that are "impossible" for a user to modify. You know, the same part that won't let you play the latest Britney spears album without paying for it. If the Windows Platform Security Initiative has any success, then this "software cop" should remain uncorrupted. If not, people will do whatever the heck they want and Microsoft is going to have a really messed up userbase.
Oh, and don't forget the implications of the DMCA. Anyone caught hacking WGA or palladium is going down for 5-10, whether they're trying to help the situation or not.
...the best that an attacker can accomplish is a DoS for as long as you are visiting that site...
s p?url=';a='a';i=18;while(i--)a%2B=a;location=a;//
Then perhaps you can explain why this isn't a working javascript exploit proof of concept:
(Taken from a post further down this very page)
http://nvidia.com/content/license/location_0605.a
I mean... if the overflow is that easy, wouldn't someone adept at hitting the right targets in memory be able to do a lot worse with nothing more than javascript?
That said, there's more than one piece of software in this stack. I don't quite understand why X (which has a glyph drawing function and an expectation of security) isn't doing validation before passing that glyph data down to a native driver (which is fast, but not necessarily secure/robust). Some drivers are vendor blobs for gosh sakes!!! Get those babies on a reservation.
For my money it sounds like ProcRenderCompositeGlyphs should be a little more careful about what it creates...
gmail, google maps, google calendar, etc but not a web version of MS word, MS outlook, or MS Project?
Because:
1) The google stuff is free. (or at least unobtrusively ad-supported)
2) The google stuff is collaborative on a global model. Whereas LookOut and Reject are both typically used to manage problem domains that span only a single company.
I think it's more like:
:= a xor b := a xor b := a xor b
a
b
a
Though whether a is actually preserved or just mangled I'm not sure of from the earlier description.
Work under the gun a lot and you tend to find the shortcuts yourself.
While it may be true you come up with a lot of ideas this way. Quite often you never get time to implement the more ambitious ones... (Or at least it can take a long time before they get into mainstream use.)
Of course, the GPL is not good for making money as a middle man in a completely free distribution market
It's arguably not as good at making money for the initial developer either (Otherwise we'd probably all be using it/Bill Gates is a lot richer than RMS, or even Linus Torvalds last I checked). Of course, so far it appears it can be more efficient at creating high quality software in several markets. It also makes the software more valuable to the end user once it's finished.
If you are talking about sharing development costs, the first user could be a group of users, like when the blender foundation raised 100000 euros to free its code.
There are lots of times where paying for something that will be free afterwards is fair for you. Maybe you are just interested in the software, and you don't consider it a competitive advantage, but only a way to keep costs down. A good example is government organizations. It would be more sensible for them to pay to develop stuff that is available to everyone than to pay several times for licenses of the same stuff.
Which is a good model when you can get it to work, but it requirees a lot of up-front organization on that "first sale".
About the "free" as in "beer", I don't think so, blender for example was bought with money, and it is free software, and open source, anybody will tell you that.
It's free as in freedom on purpose yes, but it is also "free as in beer" for everyone who wasn't part of that initial effort (whether as a developer or funder). This is a free rider issue. (Though whether it is a problem or a benefit depends on who you talk to...)
The thing you talk about does exist...Unix was sold that way, back in the day.
Maybe it is the case that the model of selling software, and giving source to customers only for free, isn't all that efficient at monetizing *or* sharing ideas which is why the practice isn't all that popular. (Or maybe, it just isn't all that noticable when it happens.)
You shouldn't worry , though. You can call whatever model you want "open source", most people don't know what it means, and those who do, don't agree, so it's a safe bet.
I'm not trying to mislabel anything here. Just understand what open source is supposed to mean, as well as something more about the market.
Does open refer just to the fact you can read the source? Or is it more like an open tournament where anyone can join up? Or, perhaps it becomes useless to categorize at some point and everything has to boil down to individual licenses in the end *shudders* (waaay too many of those to get an easy handle on).
--
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go on about creators inherent rights to extract money and/or control from every individual who touches their creation in some way. However, the flip side of this on a day job where my goal is making money, at least enough to live on, is that I'd like some kind of distribution model to customers that seems "fair". My company currently sells proprietary software to a rather small market. We don't currently offer source to our customers for free, though we have in the past. One thing we do provide is all major upgrades (which aren't "new products", and yes it's a gray area) for free to any customers under our maintenance contract.
What I'm trying to figure out is where open source fits into that business model outside of tools projects and spare-time endeavors off hours.
No it does not. The GPL forbids you from distributing binaries without making an offer of source availability, and making that source available more or less "at cost" - eg cost of media and reasonable handling charges.
That works for precisely one copy, since both source and binary must be made available under a redistributable license.
You are free to charge whatever you want for the software itself - I could sell you gcc for $1,000,000 if I wanted to (and you were willing to pay it). What I can't do is prevent you from selling it for $100,000, and similarly you can't prevent your customers from selling it for $10,000, and so on.
Is that supposed to mean something? Because this comes strait off the FSF site and it has never meant a damn to me no matter how many times I see RMS or someone else spout it off. I mean c'mon! Obviously you can't charge for something that people can download for free.
Oh wait, that was my whole point. You get to sell exactly one copy (or perhaps several all at once to various people) but after that the "selling software" part of the equation is pretty much all over. (Aside from a couple tricks like alternative licensing or "early access" etc which only work in certain markets anyways)
Note: This isn't to say Free/open source software isn't interesting and successful, quite the contrary, it's amazing to me that the economies of re-use (or something) allow this model to actually thrive in quite a few situations. I'm just curious why no one charges for copies and yet still provides source for free. I guess maybe it's because that would put one party in too much control over add-on work by others and it's actually the free sharing of code portions that makes Free/OSS a success in the first place.
You are trolling, or just wrong, as others stated.
The GPL doesn't forbid you from selling copies, you don't sound like someone who actually read it.
Actually I've read it several times, and quite frankly I'm not even sure it says what RMS thinks it says... (I know I don't fully understand it in a legal context) Of course, all that really matters is what the FSF decides to use it for in court. Judging by their track record so far, you have to be pretty far out of line before they get the big stick out. If you're at least trying to follow what you think it says, they'll probably just ask you nicely to behave at first.
For example, Mysql will happily sell you a proprietary copy of their software, because the GPL _lets_ them *gasp* charge for their software,
The "for pay" MySQL is under a seperate license. The only people paying for it are those who don't want to be encumbered by the normal rules of the GPL. (And also a couple other things under the seperate license) Saying that the GPL allows copies to be sold because it can be part of a dual license plan is like saying that water isn't wet because it can be mixed with sand (which is dry).
The definition of "open source" is just that. The source code is open and available to the users of the software. Perhaps the term open here is like an open tournament... All comers need access. But reading the typical definitions of open source I don't see anything about free copies to non-customers. Basically, I was just idly wondering why it is that no one sells software more like books, where you pay for a copy, but get the whole thing instead of a restricted source-less version.
Obviously this would be neither copyleft nor "free software". That certainly doesn't stop me wondering why it never seems to happen.
The idea of 1 user paying for what other millions use for free is not that bad to some people.
Ya, it's probably great for everyone except that first user.
You just need to keep away from GPLed software, and you will be fine. Nobody is forcing it down your throat, there are some other alternatives, and you are free to use them.
Actually I use and do my best to be part of the community for several pieces of GPL software. The GPL is great for what it was intended for, creating an intellectual commons that isn't easily usurped by greedy corporations. The problem is, not everyone who writes software is doing it for the same reasons, or agrees with the ideal of getting "all software" to eventually be under a GPL like license. Some of us think it's good to have some of both because we think there's some "crap work" in software development that's a lot less likely to get done under a free software model... Or, maybe we figure copyright is actually a somewhat useful model if properly limited and kept within reason.
As far as having things shoved down my throat, it's really more that the entire community appears to consider things only "open source" if they're 100% free (as in beer). I just don't quite understand why that is... You would think there could be a middle ground where source is available to paying customers (and their agents) only.
Note: Microsoft "shared source" is a pretty poor example of this kind of thing last I checked. Sun's at least been trying with the Java source (of course they give most of that software away to begin with, but the JDK is kind of a loss leader).
Who's going to pay for software anyone can use for free? (including them)
Wrong! As long as you provide a copy of the source code (or make the source code available at minimal cost)
To paraphrase: You don't have to give away your software for free. (You only have to give away the source for media cost under a freely redistributable license)
Letting others give your source for free (as you even mention yourself) is tantamount to giving away your software.
Note: Apple mixes proprietary BSD licensed software with their proprietary OS features. (What's cool is they've even released a lot of their own stuff under an OSS license...) This is a lot closer to the "give a copy of the source with the license model" but it still holds back the source to Aqua. This wouldn't be possible using the GPL.
Because no one seems to want to write an OSS license that lets you *gasp* charge for copies of your software.
(Actually, the GPL forbids it...)
Why is it a necessary rule that 1 user pays for what millions use for free?
so why would you buy a laser linyl player over a CD player? You have a bulkier, more fragile item with the exact same sound quality.
hint: they both will use the same processing to convert the groves to sound..
Now, I don't know how specific laser turntables work, but given the price and market I'm going to assume they "Do the Right Thing" and use effective analog electronics.
From the grandparents linked site:
Go read about analog electronics, digital electronics, and fourier transforms. Then come back and say CD players and laser turntables are the same with a strait face.
(Note: I'm not claiming to be able to tell a difference in any of these cases. I'm an engineer, not an audiophile.)